Chandelles, Lazy 8s, & Eights on Pylons

Roy is studying for his commercial rating, and needed to practice chandelles, lazy 8s, and eights on pylons in a single engine, as these are not required maneuvers in a twin. He rented a Cessna 150 on Wednesday, and was kind enough to invite me along. Everything was going well until we got to the end of the taxi way for the engine run-up. While checking the magnetos, one of them was not affecting RPM at all. We radioed back to the FBO, and they suggested coming back in to have it checked out. It turned out that one of the magnetos was remaining "hot" at all times, as you could not cut the engine by switching to the off positon. That flight was grounded until it could be fixed. Since we were already at the airport - Roy invited me along with him for a short flight in the Twin - and off we went!

Roy called me again this morning, and said that there was a loose wire causing an improper grounding of the magneto, and it had been fixed. So, off I went to meet him at the airport. The 150 is certainly a different animal from the Twin Comanche. At one point, Roy wanted to see if the stall horn was working (which we eventually found it to not be so) and we were climbing at a grand total speed of 38 MPH - then the left wing dropped. For a moment there, it almost felt like we were in a helicopter! He did his practice maneuvers around a few water towers over the big city of Hodges and then headed back to the airport for a few touch-and-gos. It was great fun for sure!